The Supremes, Round Two: Shelby County v. Holder

In the epic flood of news these past few days, I wanted to return to a U.S. Supreme Court decision from earlier in the week. After ruling on Fisher, a more far-reaching case came down: Shelby County v. Holder, in which the justices decimated the Voting Rights Act, one of the pillars of American democracy, by striking down the formulas used in Section 4 to determine which states are subject to Section 5 preclearance. Congress has reauthorized Section 5 on several occasions, under administrations of both parties. The statute would provide a remedy, for example, for punitive Voter I.D. laws, and indeed litigation in the D.C. Circuit has proceeded on that issue (though it is now presumably moot). It would also provide a remedy for reapportionment schemes that produce maps that fail to give minorities their fair share of representation, as the 2011 Texas House maps did. Also now moot.

I am not oblivious to the deficiencies of the Section 5 issues. I am uncomfortable with the idea that certain racial groups should receive preferential treatment in a statute, to be assured of gaining representation. There should be no “safe” seats for members of racial groups. Every candidate should have to work to win his or her district. At the same time, I strongly disagree with the Court’s conclusion that the vestiges of discrimination have largely been eliminated. It’s not true, and it is certainly not true in Texas. So my ultimate concern is this: Without the Voting Rights Act, how will the rights of minorities be protected? Where we stand, post-Shelby, is that the majority can do anything it wants to the minority, and there is no recourse, not to the federal government, and not to the judiciary. This is a shameful result, and does damage to the American dream.

If Fisher raises the alarm over the resegregation of higher education, then Shelby County raises the alarm over the resegregation of American politics. In other words, Shelby creates a situation in which it will be easy for the majority to draw districts that greatly diminish the likelihood that a person of color could win, and there would be no recourse to the courts or the Justice Department.

Sign up for the Armadillo

Weekly dispatches from the middle of the road of Texas politics.

Enter your email address

I agree to the terms and conditions.

The Armadillo(Weekly)Texas politics from the middle of the road

If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. Leave them blank to get signed up.

Comments

Pat

Dave Wasserman made some good points about how the ruling likely won’t result in altered district lines so much as it would result in Republican-controlled states administering arduous voter ID laws, planning for inadequate polling locations, restricting early voting, etc.

In other words with Voter ID being the law of the land in several states, Republicans are poised to take back the White House in 2016

John Bernard Books

Democrats abuse the voting laws freely and point at the republicans and holler fraud. yo time is up.

WUSRPH

The loss of the Section 4 formulas in may gut the Section 5 pre-clearance procedures that have been used so successfully to rein in Texas’ overwhelming compulsion to discriminate against racial, ethnic and liberal voters in passing election laws. However, it is not the end of the world.

SECTION 2 SURVIVES.

Section 2 is the part of the Voting Rights Act that defines the kinds of discrimination that Texas has been repeatedly found to being employing—specifically using redistricting to reduce or dilute the voting strength of minorities.
The effective loss of the pre-clearance requirement has the effect of shifting the burden of proof from the State, which up to now had to demonstrate that it had not discriminated, to the affected parties who will now have to prove that the State did discriminate. It will also make it take longer to get a determination, but assuming the Leg. continues to honor its traditional practice of discriminating, the outcome will probably be the same—Court determinations against legislative acts….The difference is that it will take much longer and cost the plaintiffs much more to achieve them.

As to the immediate effect, the existing litigation and new cases as well will continue under Section 2 of the VRA…and remember we already have a determination of a Section 2 deliberate violation in the voter ID Case by the Washington DC Court that Atty. Gen. Abbott mistakenly thought would be favorable to his arguments but was not. The federal court in Corpus has already been asked to give “judicial notice” to that finding.

Are you calling Greg Abbott a SEGREGATIONIST ? I think there is nothing the Obama administration can do to stop states from implementing Voter ID Laws.

Jared

The majority can do anything it wants to the minority and non one can do anything, not the federal government, not the courts. This is truly shameful. What’s that you say? Burka got it completely wrong once again and doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about? I don’t know…seems hard to believe given his track record of impeccable journalism.